The bullying that Jason goes through, especially in the chapter Maggot, is much more extreme than anything I've seen at any of the five different schools I've attended. Kids gang up on him, and the attacks are completely unprovoked.
Jason jumps on a one-way train to loserville when he leaves the Spooks to be a loyal friend and go back to help Dean. However, I don't think this justifies the kind of bullying he goes through. Jason shows them that he isn't really Spook material, but it seems as though they are punishing him for it. Wouldn't it be better to just let it go? They made a mistake choosing him, but just leaving him out of the group would have been enough. Jason didn't do anything to them, so the cruel bullying they put him through makes no sense to me.
Maggot opens up with a few boys ganging up on Jason for going to see a movie with his mother. What Jason does with his summer vacation has NOTHING to do with them, yet they think they get to punish him for doing something that they don't like. He wasn't conforming. Jason did something that wasn't cool by going to the movies with his mom. When he ditched the Spooks, he also wasn't conforming.
In the first few chapters of the book, Jason didn't experience nearly as much harassment. Some kids occasionally bullied him but, for the most part, left him alone. He was fairly low on the social hierarchy, but people didn't go out of their way to bully him. During this part of the book, he was trying desperately to fit in with his peers.
Jason's school has such a huge climate problem that it makes Uni seem like paradise. The biggest fight I've seen at Uni was over the video games in the lounge. That really pales in comparison to the bullying Jason endures.
You're right. The systematic bullying that goes on in Black Swan Green is scary. What's even scarier is that none of the adults seem to know about it. Jason's parents appear clueless, and Mr. Nixon only notices extremely blatant offences, such as the dirty song that Wilcox and co. have the class sing about Mr. McNamara. It's frustrating that even though all of the students seem to know about "get Taylor day," no one feels like they can do anything. I echo your sentiment: Uni may have its problems, but it's nothing like Jason's school.
ReplyDeleteIt almost dignifies the bullying too much to even search for some kind of "reason"--they don't mess with Jason "because" he went with his mother to the movies. That's a convenient excuse to gang up on him, to define themselves as "not-Jason" (I'm reminded of his insightful comments about the villagers and the Gypsies "wanting each other to be gross," so the things they're not "act as stencils for what they are.") It literally could be anything--they're already out to get him, and when he's spotted with his mom at the movies, they jump on it. And on the stammer. And on everything else they can think of. There's no rhyme or reason to it, and that's what makes it so hard for him to take.
ReplyDeleteAnd this seems to me realistic, both from my own experience and from the stories we hear about tragic cases of bullying, where a young person does something drastic in response: the "reasons" are always absurdly, tragically flimsy. As Jason puts it in "Maggot," "gang-ups have a mind of their own." The worst parts of human nature are gratified by being part of a crowd.